Why Pawnee?
by robert3A-SN
Summary: Leslie stood up to an unbalanced Joan and hostile townspeople to prove and defend her love for Pawnee. Not for the first time, Ben wonders why it wasn't possible for her to do the same to defend her feelings for him. Set after "Born and Raised"


**Set after 4X03 "Born and Raised" and can also be a setup for 4X04 "Pawnee Rangers"**

Things were really getting messed up for Ben if even Leslie's victories made him depressed now.

And this last one should have been the sweetest yet to savor. She faced down Joan's Gotcha squad, easily manipulated townspeople, and the so-called horrors of being born in Eagleton to save her campaign and career. Through all those difficulties, all she needed was one big speech on Pawnee Today to prove that she loved Pawnee and would always fight for it.

She made it look so easy…..at least when it came to proving that she loved Pawnee.

Ben tried to stop his train of thought from getting bitter, but a few bitter ironies still seeped through. Like the one about how all it took was one speech for Leslie to squash a dangerous scandal – and how it would have come in handy even more a month ago.

If one of Leslie's magical speeches was enough to make people forget about her birth certificate and her supposed lying…..why couldn't she have crafted one to make people forget about sleeping with her boss?

After all this time of hyping up the danger of their relationship and being exposed…..was one truthful monologue all it would have taken to defeat it? Granted, the birth certificate mess wouldn't have got her fired, like sleeping with Ben would have. So Leslie would then have to make one big speech each for Chris and for the townspeople – and she often went through three full drafts of campaign speeches in her sleep. If it was that easy, why couldn't they have just come clean and relied on Leslie's magic tongue to save her career?

But Ben had to remember that he was the one that finally ended it, whereas Leslie went crazy trying not to do it herself. She never really wanted to leave him…..yet she was too focused on trying to avoid breaking the news, rather than trying to find solutions that would keep them together. She made her choice the second Barnes visited her after the memorial…..just as Ben made his choice the second he discovered Barnes at the "yacht club."

If he was going to start being upset at Leslie's refusal to truly fight for them, he had to be mad at himself as well. Ben knew what was coming almost as long as Leslie did, and yet all he could think about was trying to keep it going, and making a campaign button so that the final day wouldn't be so awful. He could have dreamed up actual solutions to keep them together, but he was resigned to the inevitable break up just like she was.

But what if he was more resilient? He could have easily quit his job so that she wouldn't have to give up anything, and help her figure out how to convince Chris and Barnes to stick by her. And seeing her beat back a birth certificate scandal did prove that overcoming scandals could be done. If Leslie had realized that weeks ago, would she have realized that they could have confessed everything and had a chance to get away with it?

A 'no' answer sadly still seemed more likely.

First of all, she never would have approved of him quitting for her, no matter how little the job actually meant compared to her. Second, there was the ugly possibility that she only _liked _him enough to want to keep him around – not _loved _him enough.

Leslie _loved _Pawnee, and that's why she went above and beyond to prove her devotion. That's how she could dream up the words that would magically end the scandal, because of her intense love. It was easy when she loved her town for decades…but perhaps not for someone she was only secretly involved with for several weeks.

But why was that – leaving aside the obvious? Pawnee instantly turned against her when Joan used her dirty tricks, and turned on her even deeper when the Eagleton factor came in. And yet she still chose a town that would turn on her at a moment's notice at the word of a drunken lunatic. She felt more for fickle strangers than she did for someone that would rather get hit on by drunk Joan for a full year than turn his back on her for a split second. And that seemed a bit imbalanced to Ben.

Why Pawnee? Why would Leslie fight off scandal for a town that didn't love her as unconditionally as he did? What was so lacking in Ben that she wouldn't make a big speech to defend her feelings for him as well? It couldn't just be that Pawnee had a 30+ year head start and that she and Ben never had a regular relationship at all, could it?

Ben knew the reasons why it had to happen, but with those ironies and with the lack of time he had spent with Leslie after the breakup, it was harder to remember them. Heck, he had spent more time with Tom, Jean-Ralpho and Joan than Leslie lately. And while he was on the outside, Chris of all people was giving Leslie the big advice she needed to defend herself on Pawnee Today. Chris! Of all people!

When Chris told Ben about that advice, it took a lot for Ben not to scream that it should have been _his_ pep talk. He should have been the one to prop Leslie up and encourage her to fight and defend what she loved…..even if what she was defending wasn't him. He should have been the one to join her and Andy on the front lines, instead of being demoted to Joan watch with Tom. How did that role get filled by the one so-and-so that made their relationship a scandal in the first place and started this entire mess?

But when he thought along those lines, Ben did usually manage to come back from the brink. At the least, the fact that Chris was there for Leslie reminded Ben that he wasn't really the bad guy, and that he did still have reason to think Chris was a friend. Besides, the real antagonist now was the election process as a whole – and it was still too early to tell if Barnes could be the new human bad guy. Heck, they didn't even know who Leslie's election opponent was yet, or what he or she could do to cause chaos.

Maybe if Chris took Ben's place as Leslie's male shoulder to cry on for a while, it might make Chris more understanding if their relationship…..or rather, former relationship, ever came to light. That would certainly be a good pay off, on the off chance that their relationship became a factor in her life again.

The rational Ben knew that it would probably be a factor again at some point, and that he wouldn't be completely tossed aside or demoted forever. It knew that Ben didn't have to spend every waking moment with Leslie, nor did she have to with him. But the symptoms of Leslie withdrawal made him more likely to doubt that, more likely to feel jealous of Chris and Pawnee lately….and more likely to think that there really wasn't a reason to stay here anymore. And that in turn made him more upset that while he abandoned a state government job for her, he never thought to leave his city job for her until it was too late.

But it was Leslie's future on the line, so it was probably more important for her to make the call and not him. Her journey of living out her dream was the more important one in the big picture….and if it turned out she wanted him more or as much, it would have to be her call and not his. And since she wanted to be in office for years and only admitted that she wanted to be with him for only a few weeks, it would probably take time for her to want him that much…even if that meant waiting until sometime next year.

Until that day came, there were some truths that Ben would have to live with. The truth was, Leslie wasn't ready to risk her reputation and career to defend her feelings for him, while she was more than ready to do it to defend her feelings for her hometown instead. Even when parts of that hometown were more than ready to turn on her against all logic and reason – unlike others that she wasn't so strongly devoted to yet.

Ben still said "yet" because the little moments he did had with Leslie, like that little glare at the post Pawnee Today party, gave him the tiniest hope that it would happen eventually. But since it only had to be a tiny crumb, it didn't hold back the jealousy and bitter irony after that Leslie high wore off.

At least the bitterness at himself for his own lack of bravery did help balance that out. It was too late to really leave his job now, since now that Leslie had become an official candidate, the window of opportunity to quit, come forward and hold back the scandal was gone. So that and the fact that Leslie would never let him get away with quitting, would probably not accept that she was enough of a reason for him to quit – and would never be able to focus on the election no matter what afterwards – left Ben stuck here thanks to his own idiocy.

Maybe spending time with non-Leslie people was a good idea to help distract him from those thoughts. At least being frustrated with Tom's madness was far easier to get over – and maybe by the time Entertainment 720 went under, Ben would be better equipped to go on Leslie adventures again.

Then maybe it would be easier to live with being the third wheel between Leslie and Pawnee - once he accepted that Pawnee could probably never become the third wheel.

Perhaps another soup lunch on the bench would do the trick…..one of them had to.


End file.
